What Conservatives Will Say…

This blog was started within days of Trump having won the election;it was all too obvious to me, as with others, that Trump had huge incompetency issues from the get go; issues made so apparent during the campaign.

Since then.. and it seems like decades ago now… Trump has pretty much demonstrated exactly what I anticipated. No, I’m not claiming some intellectual clairvoyance or even being a lucky guesser. This is not anything about me but rather what I perceived in Trump’s behavior. I could never have predicted specific events, just that the man was incapable. I saw it.. others saw it. It was a no-brainer to me.

Sooo.. why didn’t his base of supporters see it coming as well? Not only that, why did they appreciate it coming like it did.. and they continue to appreciate ”it”.. him.,, when to most of us we see something wildly different? Since the beginning of his term I have attempted to try to understand the mindset of Trump’s supporters and interestingly it varies widely. Keep in mind that my interest was not only the political/social/economic reason that they made a choice to vote Trump, nor was I only seeking a reason red states voted against Hillary. I’ve been interested in the vigor by which his base seems so devoted to him. So I thought I would compare some “logic” the current Trump supporter uses to justify their seemingly misguided devotion to him. Although, if you ask any of them.. they don’t feel misguided in the least. I then stand in a position of judging these Trump supporters based on MY definition of what “misguided” or “illogical” means to me.. which is very likely not a universal definition by any means. To any Trumpians my opinions are misguided and illogical. But given this is MY blog, I will use my definitions to make this post.

I recognize two things…we are all Americans, and, we all share the same freedom of speech. I do care what other Americans think… not of me, who cares about that; I’m not the issue. But what matters is diverse opinion… and what leads to it specifically. While it’s very tempting out of a sense of frustration to assign Trump’s base as a bunch of “nutballs” or “crazies”, in the end they are still fellow Americans expressing themselves just like me or anyone else does.

Here are some of the responses I’ve gotten to some general questions I’ve asked of Trumpians.

Question –

Given Trump has a rather abrasive personality, can be a bully, and has demonstrated very questionable morality, how can you justify supporting him?

Responses(s) –

You have to look at the greater picture. Look at all the ‘good” he is accomplishing.

We may just have to accept his faults in order to make America great again.

A lot of that is just liberal media hype because the libtards are mad Hillary didn’t win.

Those traits are what we need in a leader so that America isn’t pushed around anymore.

Bill Clinton wasn’t all that moral and him and Hillary are corrupt from power. The liberals are keeping Hillary from being investigated properly. Trump has done nothing wrong.

Just look at all the crap Obama and Hillary have done to ruin this country! Look at all the good he’s doing!

Seems like Trumpians have decided that Trump’s behavior, no matter how incomprehensible and psychotic, is well worth accepting in order for Trump to make his political agenda… which for the most part means removing all vestiges of anything Obama, Clinton, and anything with Democrat origins. Evangelical (or even the marginally religious) conservatives seem more than willing to look the other way on his gross immoral and behavioral shortcomings, because his agenda is so wonderful.

Question –

Never in my lifetime have I ever had a desire to blindly follow any politician, much less a President. Why does it seem Trump supporters seem to blindly follow him, in fact worship him… agreeing with everything he says and defending him?

Response(s) –

I’m not blindly following anyone. But Trump has promised to kick out the Washington elites, drain the swamp of corrupt politicians, and put America first finally… and he’s doing it!

I actually voted for Hillary (or Bernie, or Cruz, et al) but I have discovered Trump is doing such a great job fulfilling his agenda. No other president has done that. I’m glad he won.

I’m not blindly following him. I know he’s rough around the edges, but he’s fulfilled more of his campaign agenda than any president in history.

The media never reports any of his good accomplishments so someone needs to defend his record. Liberals are just pissed that he’s getting more done than any other president ever has.

Because we finally have a businessman in office, not a politician, who can negotiate and not take crap from any other country. He wrote the book on negotiation.

I don’t blindly follow him and sometimes he goes too far. But I do like what he is doing.

Just look at all the crap Obama and Hillary have done to ruin this country! Look at all the good he’s doing!

He’s getting more of his agenda passed than any other president in history?? Well, facts are not a strength of Trump supporters; facts just get in the way, as they do with Trump himself. Just create smokescreen claims. In fact, you’d think Trump supporters were praising a totally different person than the one I am seeing. I just don’t see any reality or substance in these responses. Yet to them (his base) this is all real to them.

Question –

Actually if you look at any fact check sites Obama did more to pass his agenda promises than Trump has to date. Why make false claims?

Response(s) –

And you believe those (liberal) fact check sites?

Yeah, maybe so, but look at those things Obama passed and how bad they were for the country!

Fake news.

That’s because certain GOP members of Congress are doing their own thing.

Just look at all the crap Obama and Hillary have done to ruin this country! Look at all the good he’s doing!

Seems a lot of Trumpians live in a world of denial… as a personal compromise to the man’s foibles. (Why does that one response keep popping up?)

Question –

But doesn’t it matter to you that Trump lies so much to the American people.. and to foreign leaders?

Response(s) –

He doesn’t mean everything he says as it’s part of his normal way of speaking.

This is his strategy to throw off his enemies; keep them off balance. He’s knows what he’s doing. It’s his actions that matter.

He talks this way because he’s not a politician but a businessman and speaks his mind.

People take everything he says too much to heart. He’s really meaning something different or is joking. We all do that.

He doesn’t care what the press says. He’s saying what we all think.

Just look at all the crap Obama and Hillary have done to ruin this country! Look at all the good he’s doing!

Yeah.. amazing how these folks just blow off Trump’s lies and caustic behavior to foreign leaders. This is probably the singular thing that makes me wonder about their “worship” his being in office. It’s a variant of the old slogan, “My country, right or wrong.”; in this case… “My Trump, right or wrong.”

There’s not a lot of expressed logical progressive (not Progressive) thought in these responses… even if being logical were loosely defined. You can see there is one response always filtering through each time in these responses and I think this summarizes the 38% to 40% that hangs on to Trump for dear life… “Just look at all the crap Obama and Hillary have done to ruin this country! Look at all the good he’s doing!” You can read into this that Trump supporters are truly mixed; it’s not what they are FOR that truly matters but rather what they are against. Here is my own quote from a post I recently made that suggests where these folks are coming from:

Government stats are indicating that we are in a demographic period where more whites are dying than are being born here in America. Likely within the next 30 years the United States will become a minority majority; no single ethic race will dominate the population anymore… and that is absolutely scaring many Americans. New religions are popping up in our communities, new traditions, new languages… even new forms of dress and new shades of skin. Advertising, the forms you fill out to apply for jobs, to get government aid, are all printed in multi-languages. When calling a business or government agency on the phone you have to “press one” to get English… and the real person on the other end speaks English with some unidentifiable accent. It’s no wonder the country is in such a confused turmoil. It’s no wonder people are wondering, “Where did MY America go?”. Also, it’s no wonder understanding how someone like Trump got elected by a minority of the popular vote. His “Make America Great Again” slogan was interpreted by his base as reading, “Bring White America Back Again”.

So it’s not that nearly 40% of American voters are fervently on the side of Donald Trump. What’s more relevant is that they are adamantly on the opposing side of a culture war that’s been brewing in America since the 1980s. Looking at it that way, one might see why it doesn’t so much matter what Trump achieves, how he might achieve it, or doesn’t achieve it at all.

But then there’s those rallies;Trump’s drug of choice to feel good, which he engages in when feeling… well, when feeling anything at all, apparently. You gotta figure a number of those attendees are simply there to witness a real living President in person; camera-phone fodder. Some could be anti-Trumpsters.. but cheer and clamor his every utterance just to avoid enraging those standing next to them. But one assumes most are there to pay homage to his Presidency. The visuals just send to the rest of the nation.. the world… the impression that his base is indeed a bunch of whackos and nutcases if they scream and yell in affirmation of his most ridiculous remarks. Bad PR for his followers, if you ask me (yeah, I know, no one is asking me).

Popular Conservative Defensive Outcries –

Liberals want open borders.Huh? I honestly know no individual, from either side, who literally wants open borders. That’s just antagonistic dribble.

Liberals are looking to invalidate Trump’s Constitutional win.Let me repeat… I honestly know no individual, from either side, who literally wants the election invalidated. (Now that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone out there who does… but it’s a waste of time)

The Mueller investigation is just a witch-hunt.This is just a Trump-echo claim they’ve adopted. Hasn’t the investigation so far led to indictments of nearly 20 persons, of which Manafort and Flynn lead the list? (And it’s been “only” a year, to boot! Most investigations in recent decades have lasted well over two years.) No witch-hunt here. What’s Trump worried about?

There’s Deep-State corruption within the leadership of the FBI , the DOJ, and the intel communities hell-bent on destroying Trump.Another Trump echo passed to the rank-in-file base. Somehow it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that most of the leadership of these entities are (or were when employed) GOP Conservatives, who, once they got into power positions, decided to cross over to the other side and adopt some “let’s destroy Trump” mantra??

While you are criticizing Trump, just remember what Obama and Hillary did to try and destroy this country and their mess Trump inherited!Beyond the school-yard defense (“They did it worse than me!”), anyone doing “country-destroying” is just more divisive political hogwash.

Liberals want to destroy the Constitution! (sigh) Repeating again… I honestly know no individual, from either side, who literally wants to destroy the Constitution. That’s just antagonistic dribble. (Although, I can’t answer for the Russians trying to tamper with our election process)

All Conservatives Know What Trump Means and How He Thinks!

If there’s anything more universally accepted about Trump,it will be that no one tells him what to do, tells him how to think, tells him how to act, tells him how to communicate. He is totally unpredictable and left to his own devices. This is his hallmark… and his base claims it’s his primary strength.

So how is it that his apologists and supporters will defendhis every action, inaction, Tweet, whatever, with some measure that they somehow know the man, what he’s thinking, what he really means? The worst are the Conservative talking heads on network news. They all claim to be some sort of Trump-Whisperers when it is as obvious as the hair on Trump’s head that they have no idea why the hell Trump does what he does.

Oh, Well….

I guess in the end the question then becomes,how do we get Trump the hell out of office (or not re-elect him) and try not to be dismissive but to take into consideration the concerns of nearly a third of white America that support him and what he represents? Well, I fear it’s a generational thing, meaning as change is introduced each subsequent generation becomes more acclimated to it. The thing is, the demographic changes in America that are fomenting this white backlash (like globalization) are because the changes are moving faster than can be assimilated. We, as a nation, need to be more concerned with advancing social-economic shifts within the population even if the effects are just regional. Rapid changes like this affect all America, and sometimes it’s a real struggle for some people.

I have long thought that everything about the election of Mr Trump and the support that rallied around him has to do with seeking a return to US isolationism. His recent attacks on EU leaders, the UK, NATO, and tariff changes, all seem to indicate that America First starts with America Isolated.

That said, as an outsider it is worth looking at some positives. The dollar is strong, the US stock markets are doing well, and the US is managing, albeit slowly, to reinvent itself as being more than the supreme leader of the world order, changing its face to more of an independent stance, free of connections and alliances to anyone it no longer likes or tolerates. I can see how that would appeal to 50% of your people, in the same way it appealed to people in Germany in 1933, France during the time of De Gaulle, and to the Right in the UK, following the Brexit referendum.

Unfortunately, isolationism as a policy led to the Wall Street Crash, The Great Depression, and arguably, the attack on Pearl Harbour, so let’s hope those same mistakes are not repeated.

The current economic state of affairs here in the U.S. continues to be good. Yet we are waiting for the shoe to fall sometime soon.. if for nothing else than likely the trade wars. You are correct.. isolation does not fare well in history.

(I think when you select the “save my name” box, the next time you visit a comment a drop down on the first character in each field will show your last logins for you to select what goes in each field. Not quite as easy as on your site and many others where the site automatically detects who you are when you start the comment and it fills in the info for you.)